I Got 99 Problems But a Commander Ain't Onehttps://99cmdrproblems.com
The Magic EDH/Commander BlogTue, 01 Aug 2017 01:25:29 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/e6cb9a2200e8fdcfa3a2c4ffc90dd4e5?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngI Got 99 Problems But a Commander Ain't Onehttps://99cmdrproblems.com
Running Eternal Masters Commander Reviewhttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/05/24/running-eternal-masters-commander-review/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/05/24/running-eternal-masters-commander-review/#respondTue, 24 May 2016 20:11:43 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=3613]]>I’m going to try something different here on 99CMDR Problems. I’m going to keep a running review of the cards that are being previewed in the new Eternal Masters set. Once a new card gets previewed by an official previewer (they were given that card, not just a leak), I’ll throw my two cents on here. Newest previewed cards on top.

Since these are all reprints, it’s a bit easier to gauge on how they’ll play out in the format. These will be short reviews (maybe 100-150 words) to give you an idea of what I think of them plus any info I think is necessary. Here’s the scale I’m going to use:

5.0 – Must have staple in every deck in those colors.
4.0 – Very good card and must be considered.
3.0 – Good card in those colors, sometimes a roleplayer.
2.0 – Usually only part of a combo deck or not that spectacular.
1.0 – I would advise against using it.

I’m going to also include if it’s a new art, first time in foil, article of the preview to get more in depth (most likely non Commander related), and the last printing if you want the older card. Images from mythicspoiler.com.

May 25

Name: Wrath of God
Cost: 2WWRarity: Rare
New Art: No
Last Printed: From the Vault: AnnihilationRating: 5.0

There are two things that Black can do well: kill creatures and make players discard. Red can kill artifacts pretty well. Put them on a card and you could have a huge hit. Make you choose a number for converted mana cost in order to kill said things? Well, that’s when we get into a bunch of trouble. It can be good if an opponent is playing a deck with a bunch of cards, or tokens, that cost the same. The fact that you have a chance to keep your stuff alive is the saving grace on this card, but mostly you’ll be using this as a 2-1 or if you’re lucky like 4-1. That’s still a good card, but it’s never a truly a feel good card unless you blow someone out with it. Then that’s the best feeling.

The fourth of the tutor cycle, this one ranks just behind Vampiric Tutor as the best once since Blue loves instants and sorceries. Go grab a card with Miracle, say Entreat the Angles or Temporal Mastery or Terminus, and profit. Mix this with Sensei’s Divining Top and you can draw that card this turn, something not unheard of in Commander. It’s a tutor, and unless you spend 20 minutes searching through your deck, everyone likes a tutor effect. This is one of the best.

FIRST TIME IN FOIL ALERT! If you sacrifice a creature, it pays your Commander Tax. That’s the bare minimum this card does. But in reality, it’s a huge combo enabler with so many different combos I can’t go into them here. 17 years since its last printing, the hope is to see this in more Commander decks because it should be. Sacrificing the creature is free (which is great if an opponent wants to steal a creature), and tokens love it as well. Hopefully this card will get more love and be more than the combo engine it’s usually played as.

The other three little words that strike fear into Magic players: Destroy target permanent. The only draw back is the sorcery speed, there’s pretty much nothing else to dislike about this card. I prefer the original Apocalypse art, but that’s because the art in that old frame looks fantastic and iconic. This card is so good that for a few years WotC has been trying to “remake” this card in Utter End and Anguished Unmaking (also fearing Sorin in the art). Yes, this card is worth it in every deck you can cram it into as it will solve almost anything that’s troubling you.

What makes this better than Bloodbraid Elf? Simple, it’s in Blue and it costs less. With Cascade, the higher the cost the more it hits things. Great for Maelstrom Wanderer since you want to hit big creatures and swing with them. Shardless Agent lets you miss bigger spells and hit more direct effects you may want to cast (Draw, ramp, bounce, etc) earlier in the game. Plus, being in Blue, you can bounce him back to your hand and cast it again (Deadeye Navigator trick doesn’t) work here. You can hit more consistent cards if you build it with Shardless Agent in mind. Also a bonus: Artifact. Abuse that to your heart’s content.

Name: Hymn to Tourach
Cost: BBRarity: Uncommon
New Art: No (From the Vault)
Last Printed: From the Vault: 20Rating: 1.7

Hymn is a really good card, just not in multiplayer. If you play 1v1 Commander, then this rating changes completely (for the better), but I’m not focused on that here.

COMMANDER ALERT! Only printed in Planechase 2012 (which will also see print in the Planechase Anthology later this year), and the hard to acquire Commander’s Arsenal, this powerhouse Commander warps formats whenever he’s cast. The new art looks wonderful and The Wanderer opens up plenty more deck styles than Animar, Soul of Elementals usual “Creatures and Lands only”. Cascade is so good, even when it gets countered you get the effect. Twice here.

“Pinging”, the act of dealing one damage, used to be in Blue. Crazy, I know. Tim here is a relic of the past. Run to see him again, but unless you’re playing pauper Commander or a really weird highlander variant, I just don’t think he makes a list.

COMMANDER ALERT! Let me tell you about this card. Back when this was first printed, it basically had to be Legendary because a 6/5 flying haste for 6 was too good. This is the same set that saw a 4/4 for 2GG that didn’t have a drawback and everyone thought powercreep. This old Pit Fighter might have been passed up in the cool department two sets later when his undead self was just more fun to play, but in a format where you only care about having one copy of a card, the Legendary tag doesn’t matter and hitting for 6 is still good.

FIRST TIME IN FOIL ALERT! I honestly thought that when this card came out in Commander 2013, that it be a huge hit. Not only do you get to remove any permanent, but you force them to draw it again (unless you do it in response to them searching their library then it’s bye bye for a while). The X is just bonus as for WW you can do the same as 1UG with Temporal Spring but as an Instant. But it’s not been that popular from what I can tell. Is it the only one printing? It may not be a superstar but I still believe that it’s a valuable card.

FIRST TIME FOIL IN NEW FRAME ALERT! Ah, the Blue Mage’s closet and best friend. All it takes is two untapped Islands and three little words to scare an opposing mage. The first time seen in Magic boosters since Seventh Edition, Counterspell gets the job done. Powerful even without adding on any keyword mechanics or additional text. Never be ashamed to cast this card.

The obvious trick with Cabal Therapy is to name a card on a guess, see the opponent’s hand to what they actually have, then sacrifice a creature to get what they do have. Or if it’s been discarded, use it as a sacrifice outlet. That last line of play is most likely it’s play in Commander, but even then it’s a one of sacrifice effect on a sorcery to maybe hit something. It’s way better in competitive Magic and something like Raven’s Crime is much better suited for Commander if you’re looking for the discard outlet.

May 24

Before it’s first modern printing in From the Vault: Relics, Nevinyrral’s Disk didn’t see it reprinted for 12 years. In the past six years, including the FtV:R entry, this will be its fourth. An all powerful card that allows any color to get rid of almost any threat on the battlefield (except for Planeswalkers), the Disk will alter plans and change strategies once it’s cast. One of the better reusable reset cards, Nevinyrral’s Disk is a classic that has stood the test of time. Don’t be afraid to play it early to slow things down.

One of my favorite cards in Odyssey Block, sadly this card doesn’t really hold up in a multiplayer format where your opponents start at 40 life. There are too many hoops to jump through to make this card work and if you want a recurring creature, there are better ones than Ichorid. Even if you wanted to use something like Skullclamp, Reassembling Skeleton doesn’t exile creatures in your graveyard.

A long time ago in a format far away, this used to be a very nice roleplayer and combat against milling/Statis decks. It’s still very serviceable card; it’s cheap, replaces itself with the draw and it has the key phrase “up to” meaning that you don’t have to hit three cards if you don’t want to. I haven’t seen it in many Green lists lately as players either want to return their own cards to their hands (Eternal Witness) or just shuffle everything back into their library (Loaming Shaman). I wouldn’t overlook the card, especially as a budget option.

FIRST TIME FOIL ALERT! Rareshifted up from uncommon, this is a bigger card for older formats than Commander. Though a 1/1 Flying Deathtouch, draw a card for UB is fantastic, but I don’t believe it’s really found a home outside UB control builds. It’s a great threat to block and replace itself early in the game as well as never a bad topdeck, there certainly can be worse. The big draw here is the foil version of the card, which will be worth a good amount of money.

A much needed reprint as there has only been one printing of it (Seems like it would’ve found a nice home in the Mono Green Commander precon deck). Released in a set that cared about colors and mana symbols, Regal Force is a draw engine that could. Though it stipulates Green, it doesn’t say non-token so if you have an army of Elves, draw a bunch of cards. Bonus: it says enters the battlefield, not cast. Find some tricks to play around with that. It should be strongly considered in any Green deck.

The Judge Promo is the only foil of the card, but this was only printed in Commander 2014 before that. Wizards are always a viable creature type in Commander (Riptide Laboratory) and unless you’re playing against a Animar, Soul of Elementals deck there will always be cards to copy. This gives Red some much needed help in the Multiplayer department and fits along side with favorite Wild Ricochet.

Don’t be scared by the rules text, it’s just for templating issues. Target a creature in any graveyard, and it will enter the battlefield with Animate Dead attached to it. That’s basically it. This card can be very good outside the Worldgorger Dragon combo because of the ability to target any graveyard. Go steal your opponent’s biggest threat you’ve killed before.

One of the rarest to find Planeswalkers until just now, Dack has the distinction to be printed in two supplemental draft sets (Conspiracy and Eternal Masters) without seeing print in any other set. The greatest theif in the Multiverse will do what you need him to do in a Blue/Red deck. Artifacts are always relevant in Commander and if you ever get that ultimate off, that will pretty much be game over as you take all the things. Should be looked at in any deck that could house him.

It’s a land that becomes a 2/2 creature that can pump itself up if it taps. Before Wastes were printed in Oath of the Gatewatch, this would have been a higher ranked card because it was a colorless land. Sure, it can still turn into a 2/2 creature, but I haven’t found myself activating it too often lately. It’s a fun card to play, but the creature lands from Worldwake and Battle for Zendikar block are a bit more useful if you play those colors.

Another one of those highly debated cards. It’s a good card, but it’s such a time sink. I will avoid putting it decks that don’t need them just so I won’t get the stink eye from the other players in the game. I’ve seen people take such a long time to top that it slows the game down to a standstill. Everyone always groans and gives them a bad time. If your playgroup is quick and efficient or really competitive, then it’s a go. Otherwise, this is a group by group basis on how everyone feels.

It’s only good if you have elves. There’s a difference between this and Timeberwatch Elf: You need a bunch of Elves to make Timeberwach Elf useful, you only need a certain one or two elves to make Symbiote work. Return an Elf to your hand (hopefully it’s something like Bloodbraid Elf), to untap any creature, like Vraska or Rosheen Meanderer. It’s more open, but you have to have enough Elves to make it work. Pick the good ones to reuse their ability over and over again.

Entomb is a very powerful card, it just has to be in the right deck. So for a deck like Karador, Ghost Chieftain, this is arguably better than Vampiric Tutor. The huge draw back is now there is much more efficient graveyard removal in Commander in the past few years. This is a risk you take instead of putting it on top of your library but it allows you to skirt the cost if you can reanimate or cast it with flashback. First turn Entomb Worldgorger Dragon is a thing.

The OG stealing a creature card. It’s not flashy but it doesn’t have to be. Sure, a card like Treachery would’ve been lovely here since we have so many printings of Control Magic, but Treachery’s on the Reserved List so no one can enjoy that card. Other possible variations of Control Magic include Abduction, Corrupted Conscience, Dominating Licid, Hypnotic Siren, Soul Ransom, Sower of Tempation (my choice to be in this set) and Yavimaya’s Embrace.

You either love this card or you really hate this card, there’s not a lot of middle ground with the nightmare dragon. If you don’t know the combo, cast Animate Dead when Worldgorger Dragon is in the graveyard and target it. It enters the battlefield, exiling everything in play, including Animate Dead. With the Animate Dead gone, Worldgorger Dragon goes back to the graveyard and everything returns to the battlefield, including Animate Dead. Rinse, repeat. The key to this deck is that when a card enters the battlefield from exile, it does so untapped. So, in response to the Worldgorger exiling everything, tap all your lands for mana. Then you get them back untapped to generate as much mana as you want. Then go do something with that mana.

FIRST TIME IN FOIL ALERT! This is one card I didn’t really expect to see in this set. A “fixed” Timetwister, it sees play in combo decks, I guess, which explains the reason it’s here. Looks like it sees enough play on MTGO from the Masters Edition that it warranted a printing here. It’s basically a must have for Nekusar, the Mindrazer decks. So it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

May 23

First time it’s been printed in 16 years, and the only foil is a Judge Promo, this is a welcome sight for old eyes. Although he didn’t get Imperial Seal, this is another one of the tutor cycle and it’s best one. Paying 2 life to grab any card is just too good, which is why it’s restricted in Vintage, and banned in Legacy. There is a reason why this card was bumped up from rare to Mythic and if you’re able to track a copy down, it’s a literal must have for any Black Commander deck.

The first time this card has been printed in 17 years, this is the exact set that this card needed to have in order to see booster packs once again. Another one of the tutor cycle, this is a card that has only gotten more powerful as more powerful artifacts and enchantments have seen print. Very useful in Voltron type decks (Kemba/Rafiq/Uril), this allows you to get something and hide it away from discard spells. As an instant, grab something at the end of an opponent’s turn and draw it a few second later. The only reason you’re not playing this card is if you’re not running Artifacts or Enchantments.

It can hold the most scary creature at bay, but it doesn’t tap for mana. This card is really good and I think the appeal for this card might be it’s multiplayer politics game you can play with it. Prevent someone from getting hit with a huge creature, they’re in your debt. Or, abuse the attack trigger on some creatures to get it untapped once again (ala Alesha, Who Smiles at Death). It will become hated because of how it can slow games down, but it will save you an equal amount of times.

This is a very split card in the Commander community. Some want it banned because of the quick mana that it provides. While I keep mentioning it, you high starting life total comes into play here as it won’t hurt you as much which is part of that issue. It’s good, like really good. If you happen to pull this and want to play it, be ready for it to get hated out shortly. Me? I don’t mind it since it’s got a self destruct possibility. It’s 2 colorless mana. It’s powerful, but late game, it’s not quite as potent.

One of the most powerful Green cards as it does something Green doesn’t usually get to do: draw and decide. Looking at the top three cards of your deck and deciding which one or two to actually draw is so fantastic it’s criminal that it costs two mana (thanks early Magic design!). And if you have a shuffle effect? There’s a reason why Sensei’s Divining Top has a hate following. Again, that 40 life buffer is great if you’re cautious about what you keep but it’s so worth it.

If you’re playing Blue and you have access to this card, you’re most likely playing the best Planeswalker ever printed. Control draws of any player’s deck, Brainstorm for free, bounce a creature and, if you’ve gotten that far, completely destroy an opponent’s library. This is Blue, personified. One of the most broken and powerful cards ever, there was a time where people were doubting its worthiness. That was just about 3 months after it was printed. Must play.

FIRST TIME IN FOIL ALERT! A Black wrath effect while we wait to see if Damnation ever gets reprinted. In Commander, this might be the better card. It costs less and it has the amazing -X/-X ability which gets rid of indestructible creatures. It’s also easier to splash due to the only Black mana in its cost. Sure, you pay life to kill things but this allows you to adjust what you want to hit, which can leave your side high and dry.

FIRST TIME IN FOIL ALERT! This is “part” of the tutor cycle that came out in Mirage and Visions. Red was missing a tutor card and this ended up being printed after fans chimed in that they wanted a Red version. Yes, this is a gamble to play so don’t cast it if it’s the only card in your hand, unless that was the whole point. Red doesn’t have many tutors but this is a fair and fun way to go get what you need.

Listen, this is one of my favorite just random cards. The foil of the old card was one of my favorite foils. I would just shoe-horn this card into random decks because of the silliness it would cause. There are some fun things that you can do with this and if you want to play the game of chance, go right ahead. Of course, playing Goblin recruiter or removing all lands from your library works as well if you want to go for the straight kill.

So, for a single R, I can play a huge creature from my hand, and it gets haste? Yes, this is another really good creature as well. Surprise attacks, or blocks, can change the game. Bigger creatures work well here since you can skirt their cost but there’s something to being said about creatures with unique utility. A Solemn Simulacrum that costs R to tutor a land and draw a card seems really good. Best played in decks with multiple colors to get maximum use out of it.

Necropotence is one of the defining cards of Magic (in my opinion, the Deckmaters foil old school skull art is the best bling of this card). In Commander, where you start with 40 life, you have a ton of life to play around with to draw what you want. It’s powerful and if you can work around the drawbacks, it’s very worth it. Fun story: some friends and I were playing in 5th Edition when I put this in my deck. I didn’t know why you’d want to play this on you so I enchanted my opponent with it. We didn’t understand it’s power.

This is an all-around good card. There’s nothing really bad to say about it, only the hybrid rule doesn’t allow you to play it in mono-colored decks. Lands, Instants and Sorceries and Creatures will always be played in Commander and end up in the graveyard. It allows you to take from your opponents while hurting them at the same time. It’s great early game, great late game. I’m never surprised when I see this card show up in a B/G deck.

Great value with letting you cast a card that costs three or less for free, there’s a lot to love about this gal. If you’re somehow in a Red/Green Elf deck, this is an auto include. But a 3/2 haste for 4 isn’t always the sexiest play. It’s not bad, per say, but I don’t know if you can always get the needed value to make it work. Bounce it using Wirewood Symbiote and suddenly, you’ve got a stew going.

Exiling a card in Commander can be a tough deal. There’s enough regrowth style effects in all of the colors that exiling something from your hard does more harm than good. Plus, when it gets destroyed you get 2 for 1’d. Great in fast or combo decks that need the mana now, it’s almost never useful until it is. Note: you have to have a card exiled under it to generate mana. Colorless is not a color.

I have found that even in the format of big mana, sometimes that little bump for one extra is enough. Playing with Mana Tithe has caught some people off guard, especially in White, but here you get a “free” “counterspell”. It all depends on the number of Islands you’re running, but even when someone is winding up for that non-storm combo, this can turn the tide for a game.

]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/05/24/running-eternal-masters-commander-review/feed/0MtGColorPiewrathofgodvoidmysticaltutorashnodsaltarvindicateshardlessagentmaelstromwandererrorixbladewingunexpectedlyabsentcounterspellcabaltherapynevinyrralsdiskichoridgaeasblessingbalefulstrixregalforcedualcastermageanimatedeaddackfaydenmishrasfactorysenseisdiviningtopwirewoodsymbioteentombcontrolmagicworldgorgerdragondiminishingreturnsvampirictutorenlightenedtutormazeofithmanacryptsylvanlibraryjacethemindsculptortoxicdelugegamblegoblincharbelchersneakattacknecropotencedeathriteshamanbloodbraidelfchromemoxdazeThe 2016 Commander Oscar Winnershttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/02/29/the-2016-commander-oscar-winners/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/02/29/the-2016-commander-oscar-winners/#respondMon, 29 Feb 2016 18:13:01 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=3408]]>Late last week, I threw out the nominations for the first annual Commander Oscars. I received a great deal of interest and now I can share those results. On social media I was asked several questions and why X card was snubbed. I’ll detail the answers as we go along.

First, I pulled information from EDHRec.com, a fantastic Commander resource where you can see information about what other people have put in their Commander decks. It was a judgment call from across the varies sets (cards from older sets have had more time to be used in more decks), but I tried to grab what I believed were the most used cards for each subsection. If you disagree, you can submit your own decks to EDHRec (which I suggest you do), but I feel as if it was seeing play in decks people are putting online then it must be good. It’s not an exact science, but neither are the Oscars.

Speaking of the Oscars, /u/ayjel89 suggested it should be named like the “Solies” for Sol Ring or off of some other well known Commander cards. Since this project was a success and I’m going to do more build up for next year, a real name should be used. I’m open for suggestions but I won’t look into next year until the next Oscar nominations. But a new award name will be chosen.

No one voted for the winner 100% of the time. The closet were five entrants that voted for the winner 81.9% of the time (Nine out of Eleven times). Zach from Twitter, Riley, Shai and Mark from Reddit and Brandon from Facebook. Be proud.

This was the closest race by far; out of 432 votes, only 25 separated first and second place. The biggest snub in this category was Mother of Runes from Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Kiora. This was the only purely subjective category and you can certainly get mad at me for not including this art. Maybe because I’ve playing longer than the original art has been printed, but I didn’t like the new art. Would it have won? That’s a great debate.

This had the most debate online. There was a group of players trying to decide between Dark Petition and Sidisi, Undead Vizier. Early on it was pretty even until the winner pulled away. Originally I had left off Legendary Creatures from colors that weren’t nominated as Commanders, but revisited it when I looked at how many people put Sidisi in their decks. Am I glad I did.

Green is the weirdest category for me this year. When I finally decided to allow Legendary Creatures, it knocked off what I was surprised for most used Green card: Shaman of Forgotten Ways. This was a judgment call that I didn’t think people wanted that effect because I didn’t think it was going to win. In fact, the card I thought was going to win because it was used in the most amount of decks, Shamanic Revelation, came in dead last. No one complained about Shaman missing though. Let me know if you did, then I can reevaluate my process for next year.

Winner: Evolutionary Leap – Magic Origins

From the Vault Lifetime Achievement Award
Akroma, Angel of Wrath

Every once in the while the Oscars give out a Lifetime Achievement Award for someone who never received an Oscar but their body of work is great enough for one. For the first year, I’m giving it to Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Akroma, for the longest time, was considered to be one of the best creatures in Magic. She was used in Vintage Oath decks, reanimator, anything that just needed a huge beat stick. When you have that many keywords on your card you’re going to gain a following. She won the mysterious 64 Legend Bracket DailyMTG hosted 10 years ago and I feel she would still do well if they held one today. She was the poster child for the Time Spiral Timeshifted sheet. When From the Vault: Angels was announced, she was basically a shoo-in. Printed in Legions, Time Spiral (Timeshifted sheet), Duel Decks: Divine vs Demonic, and From the Vault: Angels, Akroma hasn’t been resting, nor has she been dealing mercy for over 12 years. A huge contingent of fans, Akroma deserves this award.

All of the Devoid cards were considered for the mana symbols in their mana cost because they could only see play in those decks. Talk to the Rules Committee if you want that rule changed. This explains Sire of Stagnation’s spot on here even though it’s a “colorless” card. In the end, it didn’t matter.

The most commonly used Artifact in Commander 2015 is left off this list. Why? Because I just didn’t think anyone would vote for Thought Vessel. According to EDHRec, it’s used in more than 3 times more decks that Blade of Selves, but there’s five times more Thought Vessels than Blade of Selves. This one was close for a while until the winner pulled out an easy win.

The second biggest snub was leaving off Mixx of the Izamgnus. I know Izzet players love the little Goblin Wizard but I couldn’t justify putting it on there when four other Legends from the same set had more decks (Meren, Ezuri, Karlov and Daxos). I explained that it was like Ex Machina being left off the Best Picture list this year (One of the best Sci-Fi I’ve seen in a long time). Does this mean I open up the biggest and most important category to more Legendary Creatures like the Academy does for Best Picture? Let me know, because this is one that I’m okay with opening up to more options; however, it will dilute voting if there’s too many choices to people to make.

Winner: Meren of Clan Net Toth – Commander 2015

And there you have it.

I want to thank to everyone who voted, all 441 of you. Without you, this wouldn’t have been possible. I would also like to say congrats to Jeremy on Twitter for winning the Original Magic Art Tokens. I’ll be contacting you on Twitter.

Agree? Disagree? Voice your opinion on Social Media, right here on the comments, or even at me on Twitter (@MTGColorpie – #CMDROscars). I’ll be tweeting more information about the ballot there over the next few days.

]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/02/29/the-2016-commander-oscar-winners/feed/0MtGColorPieOscar HeadVote for the 2016 Commander Oscarshttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/02/25/vote-for-the-2016-commander-oscars/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/02/25/vote-for-the-2016-commander-oscars/#commentsThu, 25 Feb 2016 20:10:33 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=2934]]>The 2016 Motion Picture Oscars are this weekend so I thought, “What were the best Commander cards printed in 2015?” There were so many criteria that I decided to break them out into their own individual category. Just like the Oscars. I wanted to throw an awards show for the best Commander cards from last year. This is a nice first step; maybe next year I wear a tux or something.

I took data from the ever wonderful EDHRec.com to gather this list. But this is more than just seeing which were the top five cards of each category were. Everyone has their favorites. You are going to vote on them. And on Sunday, February 28th, I’ll announce the winners.

Oh, and one random winner is going to win my review copy of the Classic Art Tokens from the Kickstarter that everyone’s been talking about. The Kickstarter won’t be shipping their cards out until August of this year; you can have them months ahead of everyone else. I’ll do more of a review at the bottom and how you can enter and fill in your ballot.

Obviously having tokens of classic art pieces are a personal preference, but these are great enough to have people take a second glace at them. These tokens are of the highest quality; the print quality is amazing, and the way the cardboard feels in your hand is a nice, sturdy thickness. Everything on the card looks fantastic. The gold border is striking enough so you know you’re dealing with a unique card on the battlefield and to evoke the idea of card art in a frame on a gallery wall. The layout is wonderful (I like the power/toughness box in the center of the card), and all of the relevant game information is visible enough not to take away the focus of the main reason why you want these tokens: the art.

Part of the appeal, besides just the great art in general, is a bunch of the humor you have in all of these different creature types. Some of these could have gone to simple and easy choices but it didn’t, and that’s what makes this a fun bunch of cards to hold in your hands. To have the Soldier be George Washington (Sorry to all the British out there), Horror be The Scream, the Germ token is represented by a plague doctor, and Worm be a guy in a library (Book Worm) is some of the great humor you see in the art. Since I don’t know all of the arts, it has the art piece and the artist so you can even call it educational as well. The only art piece I really didn’t like was the 4/4 Dragon one, but if you’ve got one personal misstep in over 100 cards, I think that’s pretty great overall.

Again, it’s up to you if you like the idea of the real world coming into your fantasy world as you play the game. I know plenty of people who like card alters so something like this in a Commander setting doesn’t feel out of place. They’re beautiful, well made, and something I think is a fantastic idea.

I could keep these cards, but I want someone else to have them and show them off. As you see to the right, here’s what they have for the Commander collection that I suggested should be offered (I’m sure I’m not the only one but I’d like to think I helped). I bought into the $30 tier, one for every token they’ll print, to show you that it’s not something I’m shelling. I don’t support many things that get offered my way because I want to make sure that I believe in that product. This is one of those times where I’m happy to add to the voices out there that love them already. These cards are fantastic and as a Token lover, I want to keep these with my Commander decks.

Vote in the Commander Oscar Ballot, and one lucky person will win my review set.

Sure, not all of them are built yet, but one of my favorite parts of the Commander format is building and retooling decks. I’ve put together plenty of decks only to tear them apart later (maybe I should be doing this on MTGO).

Exploring how decks change between sets is something that’s fascinating and I don’t see on many Commander sites (Let me know if I’m wrong). I’m looking to do something different with my decks and track what the changes are. I think we can learn a lot from ourselves and the format if we chronicle the metamorphosis of our Commander decks.

Each of my Commander decks has a different version number, starting with 1.0 for the first set I work at catalog on them; i.e, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 1.0 was started in Battle for Zendikar. Since this is a new process, most of the decks will be versions 1.0, I have several built from Battle for Zendikar and Commander 2015 that are versions 1.0. With so many decks, it makes it awkward to constantly work on the same ones over. So to make things fair between the decks, every time a new set is released I put them in a random order and I’ll work on them as I can. Except this time I chose my Ulamog deck because of the complete turnover of the deck.

(Instead of linking every single card here, I suggest you use browser extensions if you want to see what the cards are if you’re unfamiliar with them. The website AutocardAnywhere.com has links to the most popular browsers.)

Why Ulamog?

There’s the adage of “If you pull a foil Commander, you have to build a deck around them.” So after pulling a foil Japanese Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (#Humblebrag) I knew what had to be done. However, I didn’t know what direction the deck should go. Ulamog is a big honking Eldrazi that wants to smash face. With all of my Commander decks, I like to do something different with each one of them (they can have the same cards, but each has a different goal of winning). Ulamog was my first colorless Commander, I thought I would try out a hybrid Artifact/Eldrazi deck and see how it went.

It’s not, how you say, ideal. There were a few problems when I put together the deck as there were some ideas that were fleshed out while others just went half-way. When I first put together decks it either goes rather well and I know I’m on the right path or the deck is a complete disaster as it’s trying to do too many things. Ulamog fell into the second camp. I’m a Johnny/Spike which, for the uninitiated, means I like to build wacky decks and want to win on my own terms, but I still like to win. My builds will be more efficient than not, but there are some cards that one can easily get rid of if they’re looking for a more “competitive” 99.

I had hoped that Oath of the Gatewatch had some cards as at the moment it was a patchwork deck just to but something together. Not only did this deck get its new Commander in Kozilek (I gush about it in my Legendary Creature OGW review), but it now has more of an identity than before. This 1.0 version has a hybrid artifact/Eldrazi mix that’s pretty awkward to mess around with. Several cards stand out as mistakes to put in here.

Goal of the Deck

This deck, as it was constructed, just didn’t have a goal of doing anything. Ramp into a big creature and swing was, I guess, the main objective. There were some artifacts to protect and control the board until a big honking Eldrazi or Myr Battlesphere lands on the battlefield. It’s not earth shattering, but it’s a viable tactic. Attacking with a 10/10 indestructible Commander can be fun but if I was looking to ramp quickly, I wasn’t doing the deck justice by committing to the concept full term. Plus, a card with Annihilator (such as the original Ulamog) would effect the board quicker than exiling 20 cards in the library. All in all, the deck just was.

The Myr subtheme

Commander is one of the only formats that I think I could get something like Myr Incubator to work. It’s a fun card that you can go for the all out win with Myr Battlesphere. But I didn’t commit to the Myr theme enough to fully justify pushing for the Myr Incubator to go off (43 artifacts sounds like a good number, but there was a complete lack of searching for the artifact so it was a complete gamble if/when I was going to get it). Myr Turbine could get Myr Battlesphere but waiting 5 turns (if none of them were used as blockers) to maybe deal 9 damage on the 6th turn after being cast just seems too slow. It’s fun and cute and maybe just better in a dedicated Myr multiplayer deck which is where it might go. Myr Retriever, Myr Welder, and Shimmer Myr can do enough without relying on other Myr and they might stay.

Not Enough Support

Then there are cards the seem like they would fit great into a picture but just fell flat. Scarecrone is good but not enough artifact creatures to abuse it (is it good with just Junk Diver and Myr Retriver?). Chief of the Foundries looses its luster once Myr Incubator and Myr Turbine are gone (not enough artifact creatures, again). I love Deathless Behemoth’s Raise Dead ability, but only have 1 card that produces Eldrazi Scions (Spawning Bed). Thousand-Year Elixir just sits there with just three creatures with activated abilities. Unwinding Clock untaps my mana producing artifacts on my opponent’s turn where I really can’t cast anything due to the few colorless instants; a single Winding Canyons that wouldn’t be tutuored up first wasn’t a great excuse to keep it in there.

So with this mixture of artifacts and colorless creatures I just had to sit and wait for the next set. After combing through the new cards, and ones I didn’t use in the first go around, I have a pool of cards that could potentially make it in this new deck.

Creature (11)

Artifact (6)

Land (6)

Instant (2)

Kozilek, the Great Distortion (New Commander)

Aligned Hedron Network

Crumbling Vestige

Spatial Contortion

Deceiver of Form

Defense Grid

Eldrazi Temple

Warping Wail

Duplicant

Eldrazi Monument

Miren, the Moaning Well

Endbringer

Seer’s Lantern

Ruins of Oran-Rief

Hedron Crawler

Tangle Wire

Sea Gate Wreckage

Matter Reshaper

Thought Vessel

Wastes

Mindless Automation

Reality Smasher

Solemn Simulacrum

Soul of New Phyrexia

Thought-Knot Seer

Okay, why Kozilek then?

If you didn’t read my OGW Legendary Creature review, here’s the cliffnotes: he’s versatile. A 10/10 for 10 is on curve enough, especially with Menace, that he can be an attack threat if he wants to be. The casting trigger is pretty sweet too later in the game as I can feel comfortable dumping my hand knowing I can draw multiple cards when I cast him. The “free” counterspell means you can react to what your opponents cast more than any other colorless deck which means you do have actions when it’s not your turn.

What needs to be taken into consideration more than ever is the mana curve of the deck. Commander is a format where more expensive (casting cost wise) cards get played. I won’t know the correct curve to use until I play with the deck for a while and see what spells it has trouble with an their CMC (converted mana cost). I recommend writing down the spells that give you trouble and when the time comes to look at the deck again, see what you need to counter them.

Sure, the Commander doesn’t provide any more endgame focus than before, but I like the Menace ability more than the Indestructible one that Ulamog provides. If Ulamog wasn’t attacking, the Commander was pretty useless; Kozilek can sit back and protect the board as a threat other than itself can do damage to opponents. It’s the mixture of the attacking/control threat I really like.

Lands

Our easiest section here we can replace some unneeded lands with all six more useful ones. The four that can add any color were placeholders in a colorless deck (Shimmering Grotto, School of the Unseen, Henge of Ramos and Mirrodin’s Core). Phyrexia’s Core is being replaced by the much more Eldrazi friendly Miren, the Moaning Well. And Seraph Sanctuary does nothing when I don’t have Angels. I know that if some plays Ruination (a “fair” Armageddon effect in Commander), I’m done with the game and I’m okay with that. I always run more non-basics than other people anyway. Should more Wastes be in this deck since it is a Basic Land? I don’t know, and that’s something for testing. Having Wastes does allow me to run my favorite colorless creature that I couldn’t to great effect before, Solemn Simulacrum. I’ve had the odd hand of Wastes/Solmen so adding a second Wastes might be good in the next update.

Change of Focus

Artifacts and Colorless cards were battling against each other in the same deck so I looked at what I could do. I’m not saying I’m removing all of the artifact based cards since a number of artifact based creatures were added into the deck. Cards like Mirrorworks, and Scarecrone have fewer targets but at the moment but I like what they can do.

The deck edged upward in larger casting cost spells as with the addition of Eldrazi Temple shifted the idea to get more Eldrazi into the deck. There can be some benefit of adding more mana acceleration if I was just looking to power out Kozilek or other related Eldrazi but I wanted other cards to shine. Now most of the creatures do something that don’t just rely on other cards in the deck for them to work. There’s still plenty of synergy (My Mindless Automation combo made it in), but the cards left are not just waiting for me to draw a relevant spell to make something happen.

My only complaint about the way the deck works now is that there’s a lack of recursion or bounce in the deck. There’s a number of creatures that have enters the battlefield triggers (along with some cast triggers with the Eldrazi) that this deck doesn’t abuse that well. Erratic Portal might make it into the next version if I can’t shake this feeling of the creatures not being cast only once. Due to the color identity rule I can’t run Mirrodin Block all-star cards like Crystal Shard or Skeleton Shard in this deck that I believe this deck could use.

But now that we’ve got more Eldrazi and with Kozilek as the Commander, this deck can be more versatile with how I can choose play during games. Reality Smasher is a great Aggro card with some “protection” built in while Thought-Knot Seer gives the deck some hand disruption it was missing. Spatial Contortion and Warping Wail make great Instants that previous colorless decks just didn’t have. Matter Reshaper can be a powerful bluff card that your opponent might not want to block or see you blocking with. The openness of this deck is what attracts me to play it. It’s got some of the traditional Artifact control cards in here but not unfun multiplayer Artifact cards like Winter Orb or Smokestack.

Missing Cards

This deck isn’t an Eldrazi themed deck which is why there are some notable cards missing from the revised list. Desolation Twin is in both my Brion Stoutarm and Trostani deck and this one just doesn’t need it as much. Eldrazi Mimic just changes the P/T and not the abilities so I don’t think it’s useful in the Commander format. The old Kozilek and Ulamog are missing since I still fear of a world where I get Bribery cast against me. Annihilator can be tough to deal with since I just don’t have the type of the deck to sacrifice to if they get them out early enough. Spawmsire of Ulamog is something that I’ll have to see if I need the mana acceleration after 10 mana since I tend to ignore the second ability in Commander.

Here are the changes to the deck:

Remove

Add

Chief of the Foundry

Crumbling Vestige (OGW)

Deathless Behemoth

Duplicant

Etched Champion

Eldrazi Temple

Henge of Ramos

Endbringer (OGW)

Ichor Wellspring

Matter Reshaper (OGW)

Mirrodin’s Core

Mindless Automaton

Myr Battlesphere

Miren, the Moaning Well

Myr Incubator

Reality Smasher (OGW)

Myr Turbine

Ruins of Oran-Rief (OGW)

Phyrexia’s Core

Sea Gate Wreckage (OGW)

Prismatic Lens

Seer’s Lantern (OGW)

School of the Unseen

Solemn Simulacrum

Seraph Sanctuary

Spatial Contortion (OGW)

Shimmer Myr

Thought-Knot Seer (OGW)

Shimmering Grotto

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Thousand-Year Elixir

Warping Wail (OGW)

Unwinding Clock

Wastes (OGW)

Seventeen cards plus the Commander were changed with this new set making it a 18% change in the deck which is pretty huge. Eleven, plus Commander, cards came from the new set which isn’t surprising this this was a colorless set that benefited a colorless Commander. So unless the Shadows over Innistrad block has an artifact theme, this might be the biggest change that this deck will see for some time. Of course, this being version 1.0, there are some choices where I’m sure just fall flat and need testing and playing to find out the right mixture of cards.

The one area that I want to focus on is how Kozilek plays with his counterspell ability. I’m going to keep track of the CMC of cards played against me that I wish I could counter and see how my deck is doing against that. Yes, there will be plenty of times where I just don’t have the right card in my hand, but it’s better to have the CMC of card needed in my deck than just to be blown away because it’s not there. Planar Portal seems like a card I should watch to help Kozilek along if he needs it in the future.

Data Changes

So this is what I’m interested in seeing. With exception to the lands chosen, the card changes in the deck weren’t meant to produce a one for one exchange. I wasn’t trying to match up casting costs or card type, but what I felt was most benefit the construction of the deck. Here are some stats of the changes.

Some shift in the card type mainly coming from the removal of five Artifacts (Artifact Creatures count as Creatures for these numbers). With focusing less on Artifacts, it makes sense that there’s less of them. Forty Lands might seem a little high but luckily most of those can do something else besides adding mana (four of those removed only filtered colored mana but since we don’t have any cards that take advantage of the new mana producing rules, those were easy choices to remove).

And even with the change of 12 cards, there was very little change in the overall curve of the deck. Matter Reshaper can still hit 66% of the deck (including lands), so it’s a great choice in here. Sanctum of Ugin triggers off of 14% of the deck but if Kozilek gets cast more than once it ups that percentage. The bump of the CMC of the deck is slight and hardly noticeable: 4.39 for Ulamog to 4.47 for Kozilek.

It’s easier to see power and toughness in two separate graphs. This is the printed P/T even though both Endless One and Mindless Automaton enter the battlefield with something other than their printed 0/0. Ulamog’s average P/T is 4.81/4.9 to Kozilek’s 4.83/4.83. Nominal difference, but as we know with creatures, what’s printed in the text box is equally important as well. Size matters not.

I think when we get several versions of the same deck we can see shifts in the numbers. Two sets of data points are enough to draw conclusions. If you want to see more data numbers (changes in the spells CMC for instance), let me know and I’ll provide them next time. I’m reworking my Commander Spreadsheets so I’ll let you know how that goes in a little while.

Final Thoughts

This was a pretty simple changeover in deck as there wasn’t too many combo/synergistic pieces in the 99. For the next deck I’m working on, I have a hunch that a mind map may be needed to explain all of the interconnections, which is my usual norm. Colorless decks don’t have the widest ranges of style to play but the new Kozilek does open up some possibilities. I still feel there’s improvement needed in the deck but some games need to get under the belt so see how everything runs. I was a little surprised to see the numbers look so similar; 18 cards can change plenty to the deck but it looks like the 11 non-land/Commander cards didn’t move the needle that much.

I like to build my decks on a “this feels right” style that suits my style of play. Trying out cards that just don’t end up working are a part of the Commander life. This is my “first real” attempt at a colorless deck, and one of the few that I don’t completely built around my Commander. Decks in this format are meant to be a living thing that changes and evolves to different versions with more card releases. Nothing is set in stone. If you’re looking for ideas for your own deck, don’t be afraid to steal them from them and expand on the concept.

There are a few changes to the rules. First, they’re adopting the “Vancouver” Mulligan but suggests that in your playgroup you can do what you want. I’ve always liked Partial Paris, but this is an okay move.

Second, Prophet of Kruphix is banned. Either you love it or hate it, but it’s getting the axe.

Third, decks can now produce any color of mana. Before, if you had something like City of Brass, you could only produce colors that your Commander was. Now, it can produce any of the five colors (Colorless is not a color). You can’t stick a Mystic Monastery in your Brion Stoutarm deck since it has the Blue mana symbol; this rule doesn’t change. It’s for only fringe cases that this mattered.

Now, onto the Commander review. I’m going to be taking a look at the seven new Legendary Creatures in Oath of the Gatewatch. Not every Legendary Creature is worthy of piloting their own 99 card deck. Some of these creatures will form their own decks and be seen on tables all over the multiverse. Others, well, they’ll sit in trade binders collecting dust waiting for that one player who wants to do something different.

Since we can only use colorless cards in our decks, this lowers the number of available cards by quite a bit. Most artifacts and lands are colorless (as long as they don’t have colored man symbols like the Khans of Tarkir Banners) so they can fit in here. There are very few sorceries and instants that are colorless, so most of the cards have to be played during your turn. Kozilek here changes all of that. Now, after filling your hand after casting him, you can hope to guard your board with protection you never had before. Plus all the new toys in Oath of the Gatewatch can really open up a playstyle other than lockdown the board.

I had a Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger that I built after Battle for Zendikar, but him as a Commander never really felt right. Swinging with him does change games but I wasn’t satisfied with him leading my team. I feel as if I can switch in Kozilek into the deck and it makes it that much better. Kozilek can act as a tempo card (12/12 menace for 10) or a control card (countering spells) which makes it just that much easier to shift your strategy around depending on the game.

General Tazri – 4W
Legendary Creature – Human Ally
When ~this~ enters the battlefield, you may search your library for an Ally creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
WUBRG: Ally creatures you control get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of colors among those creatures.
3/4

This was the Ally Commander that most were hoping for. Thanks to the color identity rule (a card’s color identity is what color mana symbols appear on the card including the text box), this is a five color Commander. Any Allies that you have can now be shoved into this deck and you can go crazy. In fact, that’s how the last ability works. If you have an Ally creature of each color (not color identity), then for WUBRG you can have them all get +5/+5.

Besides the pumping ability (reminder, you can use it the first turn General Tazri enters the battlefield AND multiple times a turn since it doesn’t require him to tap), the other key ability is his enters the battlefield trigger. Suddenly the Ally Commander deck is a toolbox style deck instead of just an army swarm one. Currently there are 93 Allies in Magic and that doesn’t include the Changelings or other shenanigans that you can get into like Conspiracy (the card not the set). In fact, if you name Ally with Conspiracy and search up Turntimber Ranger, you can have an “extremely large number” of 2/2 Wolf/Ally tokens and an equally large Turntimber Ranger.

The real key to the enters the battlefield trigger is that it’s not a cast trigger like Kozilek, meaning if you had a way to exile it and bring it back onto the battlefield (blinking) multiple times, you can tutor for Allies multiple times. Once you get a chain going, you’ll be pretty hard to stop.

Linvala, the Preserver – 4WW
Legendary Creature – Angel
Flying
When ~this~ enters the battlefield, if an opponent has more life than you, you gain 5 life.
When ~this~ enters the battlefield, if an opponent controls more creatures than you, put a 3/3 white Angel token with flying onto the battlefield.
5/5

Linvala gets another card this time around and it’s certainly much less oppressive than before. She costs more (4WW to 2WW) but is larger (5/5 instead of 3/4). However, I feel like this version is much less suited to the Commander format.

Five life when you start out with 40 isn’t much; if you started out at 20 life it would be like you’re gaining 2.5 life, a really small amount of your life total. There are so many big creatures in the format that to be down in life when this is enters the battlefield isn’t going to save you much of the time. The other trigger isn’t as bad but a 3/3 flying Angel isn’t going to do much either. If you’re looking to combine it for the fuller effect, you’re going to have to be down in life and down in creatures, something that Linvala isn’t going to help much with as a Commander.

The key here is that both of these are enters the battlefield triggers; if you were to blink her, much like the General you can cheat both of those benefits to make it seem better. Overall, she’s a White Thragtusk, but you can only get those awesome abilities with the Green Beast all the time instead of waiting to cast her because a 5/5 Angel for 6 is nothing. I would rather shove Thragtusk into a deck instead of trying to make her my main focus. In an Angel themed deck, there’s no harm in using her. In a mono-White control deck, I’d find another Commander. I’m sure she’s good in other formats, just not Commander.

Our second returning character, this time cheaper (2BB to 5BB) and smaller (3/4 to 5/5) which is the exact opposite of Linvala. Clearly more of a Vampire/Zombie focused deck than last time, Kalitas shows that maybe not all headcrabs are bad.

Lifelink works here in the early game and is always a viable keyword (I have a feeling you’re going to gain more life with Kalitas than with Linvala). Instead, let’s focus on his second ability. The more creatures you kill of your opponents, the more 2/2 Zombies you get (If you cast a Damnation with Kalitas on the battlefield, yes you do get those 2/2 Zombies). Black has always been good at killing things but you want cards that stay in play to continually kill things, not just one shots spells like Terror or Doom Blade. May I suggest Horobi, Death’s Wail. All you have to do is target other creatures, they would get destroyed, but instead get exiled and you get 2/2 Zombies. Sure, it might backfire on you but that’s a chance you’re going to have to take on such a cool combo (Sacrificing the creatures to Kalitas doesn’t target so it won’t kill him).

Of course, using Grave Pact and sacrificing the 2/2 Zombie tokens get opponent’s creatures into the graveyard works just as well, but that’s way less style points. You might need Grave Pact and No Mercy on the table because you’ll get enemy number one once you’re the only one with creatures. If you haven’t found a Legendary Vampire to lead your Vampire/Zombie deck yet, then this one is good enough for it.

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim – WB
Deathtouch
1, Sacrifice another creature: You gain life equal to the sacrificed creature’s toughness.
1WB, Sacrifice another creature: Exile target nonland permanent. Activate this ability only if you have at least 10 life more than your starting total.
2/3

The first White/Black Legendary Cleric, it’s easy to turn this into a tribal deck and call it a day (we’ll get to that in a second).

White and Black have been working together lately to produce a bunch of draining life cards (Drana’s Emissary, Death Grasp, Debt to the Deathless), so this is a great Commander for that shell. In White, there are so many ways to make tokens to sacrifice (for both abilities), and for gaining life (good for the second ability). Having an repeatable Utter End on legs is very powerful. Ayli wants to settle in for the long game and let you win the war of attrition. White/Black can do just that.

Onslaught Block had a bunch of Clerics (that was White/Black’s main creature type) so you can dig around in there for ideas for the long game. You can’t toolbox as easily as General Tazri, so you have to be pretty synergistic with the cards you use. Evangel of Heliod makes the 1/1 tokens for you to sacrifice while being a Cleric. Skirsdag High Priest gets you a 5/5 if you sacrifice a creature that turn.

Is a Cleric only deck going to be powerful enough? I don’t know. It doesn’t have the speed of an Elf deck nor does it have big creatures like a Dragon deck. Ayli can be powerful if you build the deck around her, or you can mess around with her because how many times are you going to get to put Cabal Archon in a Commander deck?

One of my favorite Commander decks is a cheap two color Merfolk that requires me to jump through hoops to draw a card. Yes Sygg, River Cutthroat is one that can kind of be compared to this card. But not really.

Jori En works well with one of the set’s mechanics: Surge. That makes sense because there’s usually a Legendary Creature or two per a set that works with the set mechanics (Kozilek with the Colorless mana fits into this category as well) Jori En can work well with buyback. It can work well with decks wanting to cast two, and only two spells a turn. I don’t know how many decks out there are that want to do that.

Other than sounding like a Superman character, there’s not much notable with Jori En. Every other Legendary Merfolk is better than Jori En, so you’re not using her for a Merfolk deck unless you really want that Blue/Red Merfolk deck (which that color cycle is now complete).

Mina and Denn, Wildborn – 2RG
Legendary Creature – Elf Ally
You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
RG, return a land you control to its owner’s hand: Target creature gains trample until end of turn.
4/4

One of the larger Elves with a Power/Toughness of 4/4, Mina and Denn does two things we’ve seen before. Playing an additional land is always good, especially when you can return said land to give a creature trample. Both of these abilities, playing an extra land and trample, will always be relevant in Commander.

The most important word on this entire card might be “Elf”. That’s one of the most explosive creature types in Commander. Giving this creature type another land drop a turn can give a ton of gas. However, when you’re at 4 mana, however, you’re reaching the top of the mana curve for an Elf deck. At that point you’re looking to pump out big creatures (which might like the trample). Or anything that triggers Landfall.

Rampaging Baloth gives you another 4/4 while Omnath, Locus of Rage will give you a 5/5. Both of these seem like a great ability that you want Landfall to trigger over again (and you’ll be sure to do it with now that you can return that land to your hand). The question is that if you’re looking to do a dedicated Red/Green Landfall deck, is this the Commander you want? I see this as a great supporter card (I’m putting it in my Borborygmos Enraged deck), and it can can squeak out a possible Commander on its own if you’re looking for a budget build or want a Red elf deck.

And those are my quick thoughts. My order below is how I think they are as Commanders, not how powerful and Spikey they are (that’s a different order). Obviously the best way to determine if the cards are good is to play with them.

If you think I’m wrong, let me know down below or on Twitter (@mtgcolorpie).

]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2016/01/18/a-quick-look-at-oath-of-the-gatewatch-commanders/feed/0MtGColorPieKozilek, the Great DisortionGeneral TazriLinvala, the PreserverKalitas, Traitor of GhetAyli, Eternal PilgrimJori En, Ruin DiverMina and Denn, WildbornThe Tuck Rule Isn’t Some Football Game Anymorehttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/03/24/the-tuck-rule-isnt-some-football-game-anymore/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/03/24/the-tuck-rule-isnt-some-football-game-anymore/#respondTue, 24 Mar 2015 19:51:28 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=2472]]>The Rules Committee came out yesterday and made a fundamental rule change about Commander. Here’s the important part:

If your commander would go into the library or your hand, you may choose to put it into the command zone. It’s as simple as that. Just like with the graveyard, if you want it to go into the library/hand, you’re more than welcome to let it. Note that this is a replacement effect, but it can apply multiple times to the same event.

Sheldon then presented four reasons why this rule changed. General Damage Control wrote a nice piece breaking down the four reasons why they’re against it so I’ll just direct you to them instead of rehashing it.

I am not in favor of this rule change. But, to be fair, I haven’t played with it yet and that’s usually the best way to get to know something (playtesting is king). Daryl Bockett (@the_casual_guy) has:

To all giving @SheldonMenery crap,my group has been playing these rules for 3+ years without trouble.The Social Contract is a better fix

And he’s right, the social contract is a much better fix for this sort of situation than saying the Rules Committee needs to be disbanded. But let’s get down to why I think this is a bad rule change and why the social contract is key here.

One of the things that I’ve learned about studying Magic Design, and game design theory in general, is that everything needs a safety valve. If something gets too powerful, there has to be a way to shut it down. Also called “hosers”, these gameplay effects need to stop powerful events from happening.

There was a time in Standard where Planeswalkers couldn’t be stopped, most notably when Jace, the Mind Sculptor was still legal. I believe one of the biggest reasons for this is the fact there was nothing really printed to stop Jace from activating his abilities in the zendikar format. It was also the first time in the history of Planeswalkers that Oblivion Ring wasn’t printed in the format. Am I blaming the run of one of the most dominant Standard decks of all time on a 3 mana common enchantment? Kinda, but also what it represented.

See, Oblivion Ring is that safety valve that a format needs to make sure things don’t get rampant with one thing. You don’t need huge effects like Shatterstorm to have these type of effects. The threat of it and actually having it helps create a diverse metagame. Cards like Pithing Needle and Gaea’s Blessing are perfect to stop certain strategies. Even staples like Wrath of God are safety valve cards that prevent too many creatures from seeing the battlefield.

It’s times like that I see other players get to poke fun at Commander and the type of effects that people want to play in it. They say things like “The format where you complain that someone countered your spell stopping your ten card infinite combo.” I believe that the ultimate goal of Commander is that everyone should be there to have fun. Fun, being subjective, means different things to different players. For some, it’s about putting together that ten card infinite combo; for others, it’s about trying to prevent them from doing anything.

And this is the heart of the problem. If used moderately, then these tuck effects can be seen as safety valves to stop another player from winning. If abused and done all of the time, then you’re creating an unfun environment where you get into a situation of wanting to alter said rules. After all, most of these tuck spells are used on Commanders, the heart of the Commander format.

Heart of the problem, second chamber: A person’s deck should involve its Commander. Yes, there’s some combo or 5-color decks that ignore the format’s name sake, but you should be able to play your Commander especially if your deck revolves around it. That’s the whole appeal of the format, right? But what happens when you come up against a powerful Commander that’s hard to get rid of? Especially ones with Hexproof, or Indestructible, or abusive enters the battlefield abilities, or ways to skirt the card onto the battlefield. People love to play with powerful cards but there needs to be a way to stop them and one of the easiest ways to do that was to make their Commander unavailable to them by hiding it in their library (and I haven’t even touched on the putting it into their hand).

The flip side of this is that now they have to pay the Commander Tax of 2 extra mana if they want to cast it again. In a format of large mana, I know plenty of decks that don’t mind it if they get access to their game breaking Commander again. It’s much better for Zur the Enchanter to pay 2 extra mana than unable to play most of its deck because it attacked into a Condemn.

The social contract of this format, and of this decision, is where we find the divide of ideas on this debate. I think a healthy discussion of this topic with your friends will decide how you ultimately feel about this. If you play this as a “gentleman’s/woman’s” format, then most likely you were tucking Commanders when they needed to and didn’t find this to be a problem that needed to be addressed. If your playgroup is more cutthroat, then this change could mean that your decks have a potential to get more nasty (since you’re now removing those tutors for other possible effects). Suddenly now having to worry about your Commander “going away” means that you can alter your deck to just be “better” (twisting something that the Rules Committee said they want anyway). If there was that player that just liked being a griefer, then this is just really good news for you then.

It’s hard coming into a new group and finding out what everyone likes and dislikes and the power of their decks. They can talk to you about it, but until you see how their decks operate, and how the players themselves operate, then all the discussion in the world before you start may not help. Do I think Sundering Titan is that good of a card it need to be banned? No, since I think there are enough nonbasic lands that it can neuter this card’s ability. However, if Sundering Titan is abused (and when is someone going to abuse a powerful card in a format where anything goes?) then of course it needs to be banned. If I went in to a playgroup where they allowed Sundering Titan, but I didn’t see it paired with Deadeye Navigator, or the destroy effects were doled out fairly, that’s a different mentality and one where I could be happy playing with them.

It’s because of this cutthroat idea that I don’t like competitive Commander. Sure, I can optimize my deck to kill people in a few turns, but that’s not why I play Commander. That is not my idea of fun; but I don’t expect Commander to bend to my will of what I think the format should be. I like to play powerful effects, but I know the need for counterspells, and *gasp* sometimes even land destruction. That’s all part of playing Magic. With Tiny Leaders becoming popular, I’m encouraging players who want to be competitive to go there since it’s designed to be more aggressive and letting more “casual” players enjoy Commander.

I know that there are going to be challenges that my opponents are going to do that will prevent me from winning, that’s called playing a game. Even though a Commander is the backbone of a Commander deck, I fully believe that you should have a backup plan if you don’t have your Commander. In fact, it was my first article I wrote for GatheringMagic.com (actually, I wrote a “Andy Rooney” guest piece on the old GM). If you Commander gets stolen, or Nevermored, that’s all part of the game and why I like it: things happen. I feel that tucking a Commander falls into this same camp: you need a backup plan.

To quote Wu-Tang Financial: “You need to diversify your bonds.”

Commander can be an unfun format if you don’t have the right people that don’t share your values. I know that not everyone has this option, but I have different Commander decks for different styles of play and playgroups; I think that’s the best way to go. You should adapt to a situation with the people you’re around. Maybe that Mono-Blue Azumi Draw-Go deck isn’t a good choice to play when players want to play Dragons and Angels; that’s how these problems start of something being abusive. It’s because of this diversity of player’s interests that make this format fun and especially challenging to play.

Get your playgroup together and play with the change for the next three months until Magic Origins (which should be the next rules update for Commander. I know that there’s stuff going on for regular Magic at that time too). Give it a chance. Try new decks with new Commanders that you should have an easier time getting or staying on the battlefield. If you don’t like the new rule, you don’t have to play with it as these rules are more of a “guideline” and the Rules Committee has said that each playgroup is encouraged to play with their own house rules. Make your opinion known whether it is positive or negative. Each playgroup is different, and that’s what makes this rule change so difficult as it will affect different people in a wide variety of ways.

Through all of this, I want to say: I get it. I understand why the change was made. I know that there are a great number of people (I don’t know if it’s a majority at this point) who love this rule change. I don’t think that the people who agree with this rule change are idiots who don’t know anything about Magic (nor believe that the rules committee needs to be disbanded). I just don’t agree with it because I personally think it could create more problems than it is trying to solve. Now, if this change was because of an upcoming mechanic: fine, I can get on board with the change quicker. If this change leads to the more difficult Commanders to deal with being banned: ok, that might solve people’s tucking issue in the first place.

I will start to play with this changes and see what happens. At the time of this writing, I don’t like this rule change but maybe I’ll grow to like it. When “damage on the stack” was removed with M10 rules, the design of the game changed and people got used to the new paradigm shift. You weren’t seeing Mogg Fanatic any more. Has the game gotten better? Yes. Did I like the change at first? No. Did I just spent 1900 words hating on something I may come to enjoy? Yes. I am open to the idea of change but this one sticks out to me as a weird one as there would be other things I would fix before I even looked at tucking: getting Bojuka Bog legal in all decks, having the Fifth Dawn Bringers legal in mono-colored decks, Thelon’s Curse legal in Mono-Green decks and other cases like that.

]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/03/24/the-tuck-rule-isnt-some-football-game-anymore/feed/0MtGColorPieSpin into MythIntroducing Commander Spreadsheet Template v1.0https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/01/20/introducing-commander-spreadsheet-template-v1-0/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/01/20/introducing-commander-spreadsheet-template-v1-0/#respondWed, 21 Jan 2015 00:52:11 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=2464]]>I showed off some of my spreadsheet in my previous post and some people on Twitter were looking for it. So I tinkered around with what I had and added some new things. So I’m happy to announce v1.0 of said spreadsheet.

Notes:

I used Office 2013 to make this spreadsheet due to Conditional Formatting, Formulas and Notes that I don’t know how much of it will work in older versions.

Because the way this is constructed, it can be used for Tiny Leaders as well. I guess if you don’t mind writing the same card over and over again, then it can be used for any format if you want. There are up to 50 lines for each card type so it can work for most competitive decks as well.

Can be used with mono-color, dual-color or tri-color decks. No four or five color decks at the moment.

In the spreadsheet I give you the basic template and a copy of my v0.9 of my Brion Stoutarm sheet as an example. There were some changes to the 1.0 version that I just didn’t clean up for the Brion version. The key here is to make the spreadsheet as automated and useful as possible. There are still things I want to do in here (Such as sort each color’s card type by CMC), but I wanted to get the basic functional spreadsheet out. I have notes attached to certain cells and those apply for all the logical cells, please read them so it makes understanding the sheet easier. It’s not completely user friendly, a problem I have when I design spreadsheets for myself, but I’ll be working towards a more elegant presentation.

The first screen that you see is the basic decklist, and where the info is presented, NOT where you start typing. If you scroll to the right, you can see the different categories of cards where you fill in the information. The other screen will populate automatically with the info that you put it. Since this isn’t hooked up to a database, you have to fill in the information properly (it’s your fault if you mess up). If you continue scrolling to the right, you see a bunch of extra information to make the whole sheet work. Since I’m still working around in Excel, I’m sure this could be better executed, but at the moment that’s what you get.

There are some things that I want to do with future versions of this spreadsheet:

Keep track of changes from set to set.

More detailed information about the colors in your deck such has the P/T, CMC of each card type, Mana symbols.

More land information (what type of color the land produces/how much mana it produces)

If you’re looking for a different type of spreadsheet, General Damage Control has one of their own which is nice if you’re looking for more category oriented sheet (Draw/Kill/Combo Pieces, etc). Since I am not really looking to do with this set up, I am passing that link to you if you prefer that for organizing your deck.

So download the template, explore it, wreck it, and change it to fit your needs. Follow the notes and you can operate this pretty easily. Take pieces of this and use it on your own spreadsheet, that’s perfectly okay as that’s part of what I did here. If you have any questions or comments, you can comment down below contact me on Twitter (@MTGColorPie), or email me (mtgcolorpie @ gmail)

]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/01/20/introducing-commander-spreadsheet-template-v1-0/feed/0MtGColorPieSpellbookWe Three Decklists – Brion, Trostani, and Volrathhttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/01/13/we-three-decklists-brion-trostani-and-volrath/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/01/13/we-three-decklists-brion-trostani-and-volrath/#respondTue, 13 Jan 2015 08:05:07 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=2442]]>It was in my MTGColorPie post where I mentioned that I wanted to write not only more but especially about Commander. So we’re going to keep the momentum train going by writing about a long ongoing goal that I’ve never really accomplished: keeping track of the changes in my Commander decklists.

A long time ago I believed that Commander decklist shouldn’t be put online as it gets rid of some of the creativity that you can do with the format. I believe that a great Commander deck is a part of its creator and not some optimized list that you find online. If you didn’t know, I’m not a huge fan of competitive Commander so don’t expect that kind of conversation here. I do believe in having a nice put together list with some combos and some powerful cards, after all I’m a Johnny/Spike. If you’re looking for another close philosophy of how I build my decks, check out Jason Alt’s column over on Gathering Magic with his 75% deck series.

With a new year and a new set coming out, I thought it would be good to actually start keeping track of my changes to my decks. I think it’s a very curious idea to see a deck evolve as time passes and as new cards become released. I have decks which have received total makeovers (Rafiq of the Many) and others which have seen little change since its inception (Borborygmos Enraged). I’ve got a spreadsheet somewhat put together but nothing where I’m at a finished point of how I want it to look (If you have a spreadsheet that you use for your decklists, I’d love to take a look at it and see how I can incorporate some different aspects of what people use).

I figured rather than talking about the complete goals of the project, I’ll show you some completed decklists. Up first are three that are up to date as of Fate Reforged. None of these received new cards from the set (really, only one main deck had any radical changes). I will consider each of these the “1.0” versions of the decks. You can take a look at the lists, and if there are any ideas that tickle your fancy, please use them in your own. I want this to be a reference for people looking for ideas with these Commanders or even what the format looks like in general.

Remember that if you use his “Fling” ability, it doesn’t count as Commander damage.

Click picture to see full decklist

As you can see, the spreadsheet is still pretty bare; I’m still working on the style that I want. There’s the key on the side, but that’s mostly for my information for trading/buying.

This is one of two decks today where I actively want to gain life. I toned down that in this deck as it used to have more in there and focused on the reanimation and Flinging. Commander damage doesn’t matter much when you can toss a 75/75 Serra Avatar at an opponent.

There’s a surprising amount of playable White reanimation for Commander and with Feldon of the Third Path printed in Commander 2014, it allows me to use the graveyard more than before. Gideon allows me to gain a huge amount of loyalty counters if my opponents are playing tokens. Flayer of the Hatebound is a fun card in this deck as I can toss it, and get it back for more damage as well as reanimate other creatures.

For those of you wondering about the absence of Emeria, the Sky Ruin: I don’t have enough Plains to have in play to make it worth it most of the time. Gift of Estates is fantastic, but I believe that I run too many non-basics to make the land usable consistently.

Selesnya is my favorite guild so of course I had to build one with its Guildleader(s). This is all about making big tokens and smashing with said tokens. The real combo of the deck is Trostani with a Phyrexian Processor. The first time you make a minion token, you gain back the life you used to make the token then you double it when you populate. So satisfying.

Just some new cards recently (in the past year) allowed me to have some more fun with the deck. Hyrda Broodmother was a no brainer, especially since she loves to play with Doubling Season. Sylvan Offering reads: gain 2X life, make a X/X token for you to populate.

Armada Wurm is the smallest big token at a 5/5, but it has trample, an always relevant ability. Mimic Vat allows me to use Phyrexian Rebirth (a large token creator) and continue to make tokens as well. I’m wondering if Soul Foundry should find itself in this deck. Most of the gain life aspect from Brion Stoutarm made its way over here: Rhox Faithmender, Wall of Reverence, Cradle of Vitality (though Brion still has the Angelic Accord/Bubbling Cauldron combo).

Maybe this deck needs Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? Another creature oriented deck, Volrath wants to chuck big creatures so he can get bigger. That sounds like a great plan. There’s enough cards in here where you can discard and get them back later. I think this deck can suffer with multiple opponents, especially if they can stop your Volrath pretty easily.

Volrath isn’t as polished as some of my other decks, but it knows what it wants to be (unlike my Rafiq deck). It could easily be changed around to suit how much you want to reanimate yours, or anyone else’s, creatures. This is one of the faults of my spreadsheet at the moment is that I don’t have mana costs on the sheet yet, though by rough calculations the average CMC of the creatures in this deck is a hair under 5. 1B for +5/+5 seems pretty okay with me when it comes to your Commander.

This is one of two decks that I’ve got that I can just go out there and swing with my Commander for fun without too much thinking (Zurgo is the other). There are plenty of small interactions that you can do with the deck, but it wants to draw cards and have Volrath take no prisoners.

And there we have 3 decks to start the new year with. I know it’s not much compared to some other things that I’ve done, but it’s a start.

Let me know what you think of these decks or if you have any of these Commanders and how you’ve built them differently. Also let me know if you’re looking for a Fate Reforged Commander review, I might do one if you ask nicely (this is an honest inquiry. If there’s enough demand I’ll put one together). Leave a comment here or say hi on Twitter (@mtgcolorpie).

]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2015/01/13/we-three-decklists-brion-trostani-and-volrath/feed/0MtGColorPieWell of Lost DreamsBrion StoutarmTrostani, Selesnya's VoiceTrostani, Selesnya's Voice - 1.0Volrath the FallenVolrath the Fallen - 1.0#CMDRFriday – Help Me Update a Deckhttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2014/05/23/cmdrfriday-help-me-update-a-deck/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2014/05/23/cmdrfriday-help-me-update-a-deck/#respondFri, 23 May 2014 19:11:46 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=2411]]>First off, I must say that our baby is doing well (See here if you don’t know what I’m talking about). She’s been out of the hospital for about 6 weeks, but with her feeding schedule and my increased responsibilities at work have curtailed my ability to write recently. But there’s a little wiggle room and I wish to bring both this blog and mtgcolorpie.com back. And we’re going to start off (semi)-easy here.

With every set I take a look at the new Legendary creatures and decide if I want to include any of them into my gauntlet of decks. I take some decks out and I add some in depending on what they do and if I like them, but I try and have a healthy collection of decks that I can play at any time. I’m a Johnny, I love to build decks. I need to keep a list of decks I have/want to create so I don’t go overboard. Maybe I still do. Now that Conspiracy’s five Legendary Creatures have been previewed, it’s time to update my collection. And here’s my current lineup:

See that 2:30 am time stamp? That wasn’t because I was just hanging out at night for fun.

Here’s how to read the photo:

Since BNG – Decks that have been updated through Born of the Gods

Since Theros – Decks that have been updated through Theros

Older than Theros – Decks that haven’t been updated with Theros cards

Unbuilt – Decks that are obviously unbuilt

Decommission – Old decks that I’m taking apart

Since our baby was born in late November I obviously haven’t been as focused into Commander. I need to update or build all of these decks. And this is where I would like some input from you.

What deck should I update first?

This is where it concerns you. If I have the deck built, I’ll update it through Conspiracy and walk through the steps of what I did and what choices I made. It’ll give you a little insight into some deckbuilding which I know that a portion of you readers like. Plus, it’ll be content, and I know that would be good for us all.

If you want some more information, here is a page from my spreadsheet documenting my quick thoughts for each deck (click for full size):

So vote and let me know what you think. I need to put the 3:00 am feedings to good use; I’ll ease back into the writing.

Take Our Poll]]>https://99cmdrproblems.com/2014/05/23/cmdrfriday-help-me-update-a-deck/feed/0MtGColorPieCNS Gauntlet DecklistThe Complete Commander – Designing Commanderhttps://99cmdrproblems.com/2014/01/31/the-complete-commander-designing-commander/
https://99cmdrproblems.com/2014/01/31/the-complete-commander-designing-commander/#respondSat, 01 Feb 2014 01:37:54 +0000http://99cmdrproblems.com/?p=2408]]>Author’s Note: Some of you don’t know this if you don’t follow me on Twitter or have read MTGColorPie.com. My daughter that was born 15 weeks early right before Thanksgiving so my attention turned to her and away from Magic (and especially from blogging) for a while. Luckily, is doing fantastic now. She’s still in the NICU and will be until sometime in March; she’s only 8 weeks old. Catherine is now over 3 pounds, which is up dramatically from her birth weight of 1 pound 5 oz. All she needs is more time and to gain more weight, but we’re on the right track. I’ll start posting on both sites again (because I didn’t want to just restart this blog for one post again), but it’ll be sparingly for a while. I wanted to tell you Commander fans about this as well which is why I crossed posted this post.

The exciting news coming out today is the release of Bennie Smith’s new Commander eBook: The Complete Commander. I was able to get an early copy of it, and it’s fantastic. If love Commander or want to get started, get this book. Bennie and MJ Scott did a wonderful job putting the book together and with all of the artwork from James Arnold (that awesome artwork you see on GatheringMagic.com) it just blows you away.

Do I want a hardcover of this book? Yes please.

What Bennie and MJ have done is gathered a ton of Commander related content and jammed it into this book. You want sample decklists? Done. How about strategy? In here too. Commander Deckbuilding 101? Got you covered. Maybe a little short story fiction? Right there with you. A glossary and a list of Commander staples? Yes, this book has everything.

And it’s $10. $10? That’s less than a booster draft. It’s criminal of you not to own it at that price.

But it’s not just Bennie’s words in this ebook. Just as Commander is a community format, this is a community book. There are a ton of players who have written in with their favorite Commander moments. Other members of the Commander community have written short stories, just like Star City Game’s Vorthos expert John Dale Beety. Gathering Magic’s Content Editor and Daily MTG’s Command Tower author Adam Styborski wrote the introduction. Level Five judge and “Godfather” of Commander Sheldon Menery wrote the foreward.